Interviewees

Walter Allen

Allan Murray Cartter Professor of Higher Education at UCLA
2002 Recipient of DuBois-Johnson-Frazier Award
Allen has held teaching appointments at the University of California, Los Angeles (1989-present), the University of Michigan, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Howard University, Duke University, University of Zimbabwe and Wayne State University. His more than 100 publications include Higher Education in a Global Society: Achieving Diversity, Equity and Excellence (2006), Enacting Diverse Learning Environments: Improving the Climate for Racial/Ethnic Diversity in Higher Education (1999), College in Black and White: African American Students in Predominantly White and Historically Black Public Universities (1991) and The Color Line and the Quality of Life in America (1987).

Mark Bernstein

Chair, Michigan Commission of Civil Rights
Mark Bernstein attended the University of Michigan, receiving a B.A. in 1993 and completing the J.D./M.B.A. joint-degree program in 1996. He serves as the chairperson of the Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation and is on the Advisory Board of Jewish Family Services, both in Washtenaw County. Bernstein served as director of press pool operations in the White House during the Clinton administration.

Eric Brooks

Graduate, UC Berkeley Boalt Hall Law School Associate Lawyer, Morrison & Foerster
Eric Brooks was the only African American admitted to UC Berkeley's Boalt School of Law the year after Proposition 209 passed. While in school, Brooks was Third-Year Class President, Editor-in-Chief of the African-American Law & Policy Report, and Co-President of the Law Students of African Descent. Brooks is currently an Associate in the Securities Litigation Practice Group of Morrison & Foerster's San Francisco office. He is Chair of the Ethnic Minority Relations Committee of the State Bar of California and a Board Member of the East Bay Community Law Center

Stephanie Chang

Member, One United Michigan
Stephanie Chang is a recent University of Michigan alumna and a youth leader of One United Michigan. She contributed to writing the One Michigan Asian American Caucus paper in support of affirmative action.

Toni Chavis, M.D.

Pediatrician
Toni Chavis was enrolled in UC Davis medical school in 1973, the year Allan Bakke was not admitted. She has spent most of her life in Compton, California, where she graduated high school as class valedictorian. Chavis completed her undergraduate degree at Stanford University, with distinguished honors, and earned a Masters of Public Health degree at UCLA. She is a pediatrician and CEO of Omnicare Medical Group in Compton.

Ward Connerly

Founder and Chairman, American Civil Rights Institute Former member, UC Board of Regents
President and CEO, Connerly and Associates
Ward Connerly is best known for his leadership on the California Civil Rights Initiative, or Proposition 209, the proposition that ended affirmative action in California. As a UC Regent, Connerly used his influence to promote the belief that affirmative action was little more than racial discrimination. In 2003, Connerly led support for a measure he helped place on the ballot that would prohibit the state government from classifying any person by race, ethnicity, color, or national origin. This measure failed. Currently, Connerly is the chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, a "national, not-for-profit organization aimed at educating the public about the need to move beyond racial and gender preferences." He is also the author of an autobiography entitled Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preferences.

Christopher Edley Jr.

Dean and Professor of Law, Boalt Hall Law School
Christopher Edley Jr. joined Boalt Hall as dean and professor of law in 2004 after 23 years as a professor at Harvard Law School. He earned a law degree and a master's degree in public policy from Harvard, where he served as an editor and officer of the Harvard Law Review. Edley was cofounder of the Harvard Civil Rights Project, a multidisciplinary research and policy think tank focused on issues of racial justice. Following graduation, Edley joined President Carter's administration as assistant director of the White House domestic policy staff and served both the Dukakis and Clinton administrations before being asked to direct the White House review of affirmative action under President Clinton in 1995.

Jennifer Gratz

Executive Director, Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
Jennifer Gratz was one of the original plaintiffs in Gratz v. Bollinger, a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the University of Michigan used race as a factor in making admissions decisions because it served a "compelling interest in achieving diversity among its student body." Gratz graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in mathematics and has spearheaded the effort to amend the Michigan Constitution by adding "a new Section 26 to Article I that would prohibit state and local government from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the areas of public employment, public contracting and public education."

Andrea Guerrero

Author, Silence at Boalt Hall: The Dismantling of Affirmative Action 2002Co-chair, Students for Educational Opportunity 1998

Co-author, Equal Education Opportunity Initiative 1998
After the passage of California's Proposition 209, Guerrero was a member of the last class of students admitted to Boalt Hall Law School under affirmative action. She cofounded Students for Educational Opportunity (SEO), an organization dedicated to the idea that "...diversity is one of California's greatest strengths. It invigorates our learning environments, our economy and our culture." As part of a broader coalition, Guerrero and the SEO wrote the Equal Education Opportunity Initiative, a direct challenge to Proposition 209 that read simply: "In order to provide equal opportunity, promote diversity, and combat discrimination in public education, the state may consider the economic background, race, sex, ethnicity, and national origin of qualified individuals."

Angela Harris

Professor of Law, Boalt Hall Law SchoolExecutive Committee Member, Center for Social Justice
Angela Harris was the first African American female tenured law professor at the UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law. Before joining the faculty in 1988, Harris served as a law clerk to Judge Joel M. Flaum of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and as an attorney in the San Francisco office of Morrison & Foerster. She was a visiting professor at Stanford Law School in 1991, Yale Law School in 1997, and Georgetown Law Center in 2000. In 2003, Harris received the Rutter Award for Teaching Distinction and the Mathew O. Tobriner Public Service Award, an annual prize that recognizes Bay Area law school professors for their commitment to academic diversity and for mentoring the next generation of lawyers.

Pat Hayashi

Retired Associate President, University of California Office of the President Former Associate Vice Chancellor, UC Berkeley
Pat Hayashi was the Associate Vice Chancellor of Admissions and Enrollment when Proposition 209 was passed. Since retiring from UC Berkeley, he has continued to work with the university's Campus Community Initiative, which "works collaboratively with campus departments, divisions and groups [to] develop, lead and launch campus wide projects to foster an inclusive environment, individual learning and growth, and a sense of place."

Brandon Jessup

Member, One United Michigan
As a student at the University of Michigan, Brandon Jessup was active in the struggle to protect affirmative action with the Detroit NAACP.

Marvin Krislov

Vice President and General Counsel, University of Michigan Adjunct Professor

Adjunct Law Professor
In addition to serving as the University's General Counsel, Marvin Krislov teaches at the Law School, and also teaches a course in the political science department. He came to the University from the U.S. Labor Department, where he served as the primary legal advisor to the secretary of labor. Among other responsibilities there, he monitored affirmative action plans for federal institutions. Prior to that, he worked on civil rights issues in the White House Counsel's Office, and he prosecuted those charged with racial or religious violence and acts of police brutality for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.

Rick Pluta

Reporter, Michigan Public Radio
Rick Pluta has worked for Michigan Public Radio since 1996 and has covered the Michigan Capitol since 1987. Pluta has also worked for WJR-AM (Detroit), The (Pontiac, Mich.) Oakland Press, United Press International, and The (Elizabeth, N.J.) Daily Journal. He's a frequent contributor to the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, National Public Radio and Public Radio International.

Trisha Stein

Executive Director, One United Michigan
Trisha Stein has worked in London in the House of Commons, as a communications analyst for the Michigan House, and in 1998 managed the campaign that helped elect another notable woman, Jennifer Granholm, as Michigan Attorney General. In 2006, she became the executive director of One United Michigan to fight a ballot proposal that would end affirmative action programs in Michigan.

Daniel Tellalian

Director, Emerging Markets, Inc.
Fellow, Urban Analysis Project, 1998-2000
Daniel Tellalian holds degrees in business and law from UC Berkeley, as well as economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the founder of the Urban Analysis Project, a nonprofit providing real estate consulting services to small businesses and community groups in Los Angeles' low-income communities. Tellalian is a recipient of the Echoing Green Fellowship.

Dirk Tillotson

Founder, Oakland Charters Together School Board President, American Indian Charter School

Member, Oakland Unity High School Design Team
Dirk Tillotson is an attorney and doctoral student in UC Berkeley's department of Jurisprudence and Social Policy. He graduated from Berkeley in 2002, as the first African American to ever graduate from his program. He completed his undergraduate B.A. at the State University of New York at Albany and received his law degree from Berkeley in 1995. He currently manages a solo law practice focusing on educational law and non-profit organizations with a special emphasis on charter schools.

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